Wednesday, September 18, 2013

How Republicans will give Obama carte-blanche in his last two years as President

United we stand. Divided we fall.

The absurdity that is running amuck in Congress is destined to stop soon. This is not just wishful thinking. I say this with complete confidence. Republicans in Congress will take the lead in ending their own misery with two last desperate actions to win favor with their wealthy constituents while betraying the rest of us, and this will signal the end.

Within the Republican party, members of the Tea Party caucus are deliberately choosing to end our government. They have shown that they do not have a desire to compromise, do not want to create useful legislation and are even willing to cause an economic crisis if they don't get their way. They have split their own party. Tea Party leaders such as Canadian born Ted Cruz and his Cuban born father are leading simple-minded Tea Party members astray.

Ted Cruz

They claim that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is the single most injurious program in the history of the world and must be stopped. They blame the actions of unethical business owners, such as reducing full time employee hiring and cutting hours to avoid having to provide insurance to their employees, on Obama. They asked for concessions to allow one more year for business owners to conform to healthcare regulations and requested exemption from the business mandated penalties and got them from Obama. Now they claim that Obama is helping big business but denies the same exemption for individuals. Politics and truth seem to be unfamiliar partners in Republican circles.

The first desperate action that Republicans will take is to offer a much monetarily reduced continuing resolution to keep the government running but will attach an amendment to defund ObamaCare. This will pass the House but fail in the Senate. After this useless legislation delay, Republicans will allow the government to shut down long enough to make the debt ceiling the next issue they can use as leverage to defund Obama Care. Typically, they take actions that will hurt many Americans with the

aloof disregard of sociopaths.

When it becomes painfully obvious that Republicans are hurting their own constituents with the government shut down, they will eventually pass a continuing resolution to fund the government. You can bet that it will continue to contain articles to attack some aspect of Obama Care which Democrats may allow in order to continue governing. My guess is that they will first propose a year exemption from the individual mandate penalty that will not be approved. Then they will attach a demand for reduced employer contributions to the employee insurance premium. That or something like it will probably pass.

With the government back in operation, a week or so later, Republicans will use the threat of not passing the debt ceiling as another attack on defunding ObamaCare. Most members of Congress know that increasing the debt ceiling is needed in order to pay for debt obligations already made by Congress. The last time increasing the debt ceiling was rejected by Republicans, America's credit rating dropped and the interest rate charged increased. Increasing the interest on trillions of dollars in loans makes for a huge increase in our deficit. Republicans never seem to remember how much they are personally responsible for "Obama's" deficit.

This time there will be no compromise and America will go into default on its loans for some period of time. Then it will be a race to see which side will give in first. Because of our already tight monetary policy, the economic health of America is sure to be hurt. Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke has described this as a recession inducing action.

If it appears that there is no compromise in sight, stocks will be affected and Americans 401K's will

Crash of 2013?

lose tremendous value. Retirees can expect that their incomes from investments will be slashed and their standard of living will be drastically reduced. The wealthy will remove their cash from the stock market and place it into tax sheltered off-shore accounts. This will pull the market down even more. A middle-class financial crisis could become the most severe in history and will signal the end of the middle-class in America. When the middle-class is gone, business will be affected and the entire economic structure of the United States could undergo the greatest depression in our history.

Because of the potential economic damage to America and the world, I have to believe that Republicans will give up on their insistence to defund ObamaCare and pass the increase in the debt ceiling, especially when they realize that the world will see them as the cause of a world-wide depression.

But some damage will be done to the economy because Republicans won't give up their senseless acts of desperation in short order. Because this will hurt their own wealthy Wall Street constituents, the Tea Party Republicans will be stifled and healthier Republican minds will prevail.

The future may bring civility back to governing.

Remember the next month when you are voting for your Congressmen in the 2014 mid-term elections. Let's hope righteousness is a powerful enough ideal and pervasive enough in our voting public to overcome the evil that seems to have invaded Republican politics.